Page 24 of Awaken the Dragon
“I would like to go back to the hotel.”
“Aiken will inquire about your remaining belongings. You’re staying here.”
“I am a client. Not a prisoner.”
And she was right. Theo set his glass down, acutely aware of the other eyes on him as they all wondered what he would do or say. This wasn’t a normal situation for any of them. For starters, there had never been anyone else at the Office but them, the only Drakon he knew of in this area. They hadn’t asked the question but he knew it was plaguing their minds—they would want to know why her. Magnum had a sense that she was different, his dreams had told him so. Unlike his older brother, who was a dream watcher, Steele was a dream reaper. His dreams visited those who were selected to die. Steele hadn’t mentioned knowing Shola in any way, a reassuring thought for Theo. But Ziva was the clairvoyant, so Theo wondered how long it would be before one of her sporadic visions showed her something he wasn’t ready for her to know.
As it stood right now, he was the only one who knew that while Shola was not a prisoner, neither was she only a client.
“You are under my protection, and as long as that is so, you’ll do as instructed. There’s an indoor pool on the property, just past the gym. Bleu can show you where it is.”
Their gazes held for endless moments as she undoubtedly struggled to digest him remembering water was her calm. He wasn’t certain why he’d retained that fact about her either. As for the beast, it fed off her gaze, using it to scrape its scaly skin against the man’s, warning just how close it was to making an appearance. Theo stood.
Shola lifted her chin defiantly and stood as well.
“I will not be detained here against my will,” she told him.
“No,” he replied with a shake of his head. “You will remain throughout the day with access to the pool and fitness facilities, television, food, all the modern comforts. Tonight you will attend your engagement party. Your husband-to-be will be there, and if he requests, you can stay with him until the ceremony. That’s how this is going to play out, Shola, and it’s not up for negotiation.”
The Owing Center was an electric blue sphere-shaped building located at the intersection separating two very distinct districts in Burgess—the arts district and the financial district. Places that were also known in the preternatural world as the shifters’ playground and the vampires’ stomping ground.
It was a little after nine in the evening when the three black trucks turned into the building’s back parking lot. Reece climbed out of the first vehicle and Aiken exited the last one. Theo watched from the rear passenger side window of the second truck, as the two met up near the first vehicle and scanned the area. Aiken French, the one the others called the GQ Drakon, was dressed in a black suit, shirt, tie and shoes. His hair was cropped low and precise, his slim build concealing the brute strength he possessed along with his telekinetic abilities.
They were scanning the area for demonic activity. From inside the truck, Theo was too. One hand lay flat on his thigh while he’d propped an elbow on the door handle and ran the fingers of that hand over his chin. The man was acutely aware of every sound and movement in the vicinity while the beast had sat up on the offensive as well. There were no questionable scents, none related to demonics, only the sweet heady fragrance coming from the woman sitting a couple feet across from him.
“Why did you ask me if I loved him?”
The question came just as he was insisting his beast focus on things outside of this vehicle only.
Up to this point she hadn’t said a word in the hour they’d been in the truck. Her hands remained folded and resting in her lap.
“Isn’t that why people get married?”
“If you believed that, then why ask me? Would it not be obvious that I did?”
What was obvious was that she didn’t act like a woman in love. Not that he knew what that looked like either. The one commitment he’d paid attention to had ended in betrayal and death. Those two things he knew all too well.
“Why didn’t you answer me?” he asked.
Her silence drew his gaze back to her.
“It would be good if we could create our own destiny,” she said quietly.
He shook his head at the odd statement. “I don’t believe in destiny. Live the life you want.”
“I do not think it is always that simple. Some things are bigger than you and your wants.”
His father had said something similar the night Theo announced he was leaving. “Not if it means you sacrifice a part of yourself in the process.” He meant those words because he’d refused to live a life filled with death and destruction, no matter what clan he’d been born into.
“What if the sacrifice is all you know?” She stared at him with a gaze so poignant he felt a heaviness in his chest.
He didn’t think before reaching out to run the backs of his fingers over the warm smoothness of her cheek. She stiffened, but she didn’t move away.
“Clear!” Reece shouted and knocked on the hood of Theo’s truck.
He and Shola remained still, but he heard the others moving outside. Bleu stepped out of the driver’s seat and Ziva exited from the passenger side, both heading toward the back of the truck. In seconds they would open the doors to let him and Shola out. They couldn’t see him touching her, not in this way. But he couldn’t ignore the tug in his gut that had prompted him to put his hands on her, or the allure of her quiet acquiescence to the touch.
When he did pull his hand away, he continued watching her as she sucked in a breath before grabbing the small purse she’d set on the seat beside them. When Bleu opened her door, she accepted his hand and stepped out. Theo opened his door before Ziva could grab the handle and stepped out to adjust his suit jacket. He took note of the position of his men, the cars parked on the street and the building all while walking around the truck where Bleu was waiting with Shola.
